A handful of young people wait patiently for their
turn to get behind the rubbery keyboard of a brand new Sinclair Spectrum
computer.
Others await to show their skills at Pac-man or swivel Tetris pieces to
that catchy Russian melody. Carlota Maura visits Madrid Games Week 2013 and reports on RetroMadrid's funky historical gaming stand there

The Feria de Madrid has just hosted one of the biggest
events for gamers and video game enthusiasts in Spain: Madrid Games Week 2013. This
first edition organized by IFEMA gathered together some of the biggest
companies in the video games industry. Among them were Sony Computer
Entertainment, Microsoft, Activision-Blizzard, Namco Bandai Games, Electronic
Arts, Nintendo and GAME.

This highly anticipated fair featured several
innovations that attracted gamers from all over Spain, such as the presentation
of the PS4 and Xbox One in the stands of the giants Sony and Microsoft, and the
chance to try their newest and most exclusive games, many of which are not yet
on sale. Although the areas of Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo were the most
popular, Mountain obtained a permanent queue of gamers, formed by enthusiastic youngsters eagerly waiting to try
the new Oculus Rift—a virtual reality device that will be released in 2014
and is expected to cause a revolution in the gaming industry.

The new value of retro gaming

Among the long queues at Mountain, Sony and Microsoft
to try future consoles with the latest games and most advanced graphics,
a
small crowd of young gamers (and some not so young) gathered around a
smaller
stand; a stand in which neither the stunning graphics of the PS4 nor the
Xbox’s intense Call Of Duty competitions dominated the attention of the
visitors. It was the stand of RetroMadrid, the section of the show
dedicated to
the nostalgic, classic gamers—the lovers of the so-called and nearly
forgotten eight
and 16-bit.

Here, what matters is not the graphics, nor the size
or the quality of the platform, but the game itself and the historical value of
consoles which have played their part in an industry that, in very few years,
has changed and revolutionized our concept of entertainment.

In this stand, RetroMadrid exhibited older consoles
such as the popular Sega Mega Drive, the ZX Spectrum or the Super Nintendo. The
exhibition offered visitors an exceptional opportunity to experience classic
gaming and see how this industry has changed and evolved in a few years and how
much it can still change. Legendary games like Tetris, Pac-Man or the first
Sonic proudly showed off their pixelated graphics on a range of hardware not
far off celebrating its 30th birthday.

Going back to the origins of the game

Retro hard, soft and firmware on sale at RetroMadrid
Although small and insignificant next to the PS4 and
Xbox One launches, RetroMadrid’s booth attracted the attention of older visitors, who
nostalgically recalled the enthusiasm with which they had played those same
consoles during their childhood, as well as the attention of younger visitors,
awed by the simplicity of the first games.

RetroMadrid also made hundreds of games and consoles available
for sale at their booth, and prepared a full program of talks and lectures on
the exposed material. These games have acquired, in recent years, a new
popularity in the entertainment industry, a trend that has been demonstrated by
the recent cinematic success Break It
Ralph, a tribute to the retro game, or in the documentary The King of Kong : A Fistful of Quarters,
released in 2007.

The RetroMadrid stand left me with a strong impression
of the revolutionary concepts that the first consoles introduced, and how they
have evolved since then. It is only obvious that the gaming industry has not
yet reached its zenith and that in less time than one might think, new
entertainment technologies will have transformed the industry into something that
even the most dedicated of gamers wouldn’t be able to foresee.